Review of History of Philosophy of Science Books

Naturalist Grist for the Philosophically Inclined Historians Mill: Paul Roth on Narrative Explanations and Their Mysterious Structure  Paul Roth:  The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020. xvii + 192 pages.  $99.95. Paperback ISBN 9780810140882. DOI:  10.2307/j.ctvt1sg91 Fashions come and go; intellectual trends are no exception; neither is the rational undertaking of so-called analytic philosophy. Although during its more than one hundred years of past, many different subjects and fields were discussed, if one were to concentrate on or name the most characteristic topics, then philosophy of language and philosophy of science were to be nominated with relative ease and security. But “philosophy of language” and “philosophy of science” are big and complex subjects, and especially the latter witnessed various trends and patterns after it was brought into the scholarly attention of many by th...

From Vienna to Oxford: Bringing Waismann Home Dejan Makovec and Stewart Shapiro, eds.  Friedrich Waismann: The Open Texture of Analytic Philosophy , Cham: Palgrave MacMillan Press, 2019. xix + 343 pages.  € 106,99 Hardcover. ISBN 978-3-030-25007-2 The Vienna Circle, as it is well known, was formed by German-speaking scholars, most of whom were scientists-turned-philosophers. Among these figures, we find those who played a central role in leading and organizing the Circle and who in time gained a wide-ranging international reputation, such as Rudolf Carnap, Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Herbert Feigl or Philipp Frank. There are also those who influenced other members, attended most of the meetings, were recognized in their respected fields but did not enter the mainstream of the history of analytic philosophy. One might think of Karl Menger, Hans Hahn, Viktor Kraft, Felix Kaufmann, or Edgar Zilsel.            ...

Harmonizing philosophy of science: The Aesthetics of Science Milena Ivanova and Steven French (eds.),  The Aesthetics of Science: Beauty, Imagination and Understanding . New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2020, pp. viii + 214. Hardcover ISBN 978-0-367-14114-1. £120.00.  Both science and its philosophical understanding, namely the philosophy of science, are rich fields for the interested researcher. Scientific objects, scientific constructions, scientific practices, but even scientists themselves could be studied in many ways, utilizing different tools of various scientific fields. During the twentieth century ontological, epistemological and even moral questions dominated the interest of philosophers; thus the most important questions were always related to the truth or usefulness of theories. (Moral, sociological and cultural aspects of the scientific endeavor, in fact, became apparent and fertile only at a relatively later stage.)      ...